I Saw the TV Glow (2024)

PG-13, which kind of surprised me just because this is an A24 horror-adjacent movie.  I think there's some language, but the real thing that is upsetting about the movie is there is one self-mutilation sequence.  There's also --and this is weirdly worded on my part --aura of suicide.  While suicide isn't outright stated, there is all of this self-harm behavior going on in the movie.  Also, at one point, a teenager smokes a cigarillo.  This is where I'm at with this MPA section.  Leave me be!

DIRECTOR: Jane Schoenbrun

You have to forgive me a bit.  I'm all over the place emotionally this morning.  I watched the debates last night and I don't think I've ever been so happy watching a debate.  That also being said, I Saw the TV Glow might be one of the worst movies I've seen in a long time.  I was thinking I was going to give it a 2/5 on Letterboxd just because I want to seem respectful.  But then I realized that I was being kind because I know that other people really like this movie.  Understand, I am both the target audience for this movie and absolutely the last person who should be watching this movie.

My one-line on Letterboxd will be "I Saw the Glow might be the most A24 film that ever existed and that's a bad thing."  It's clickbaity, I know.  But I'm also trying to get clicks.  I'm honest with you up front.  Jane Schoenbrun makes movies like I Saw the TV Glow.  Heck, if I remembered that she directed We're All Going to the World's Fair, I think I would have been way more prepped for what I signed up for.  Let's break down the A24 comment first.  If I wanted to make a parody film about A24, it would look a lot like I Saw the TV Glow.  Schoenbrun's entire thing is tone.  While there's a message in this movie that I probably want to support, everything in this movie is so dour and unfun that it is acting as a substitution for weight.  The movie feels artistic without actually being artistic.  (I get it.  Art is subjective.  Let me argue my point.)  Every line in this movie is given with the same despondent delivery.  Every shot is almost intentionally ugly (which is hit or miss with A24.  It's either the movies look flipping gorgeous or it looks underlit and on an old camcorder).  But there's something that comes across like fitting a square peg in a round hole (which as I write it, may be symbolic for the whole queer experience).  

While this is a movie about identity, something that I want to talk about at length, it comes at that identity through the lens of fandom.  While Schoenbrun may be pulling from a wealth of '90s TV shows, ultimately a lot of the weight falls on Buffy the Vampire Slayer.  There are nods to the show --a show that I watched religiously in its entirety plus spin-off and read the extended universe stuff.  Like the characters who devoted themselves to The Pink Opaque, I get what fandom means.  The problem is, I don't think that Schoenbrun understands what fandom means.  There's partially this message, perhaps unintentionally, about how fandom can become toxic.  The second half of the film shows Maddy / Tara (I really don't want to deadname her) forcing Owen to become Isabel.  Owen --as a metaphor for embracing the shame of being closeted --flees Maddy a second time.  He hates Maddy and fears her once this happens, hiding in his room.  In response, he almost deliberately tries to be unremarkable.  He betrays his asexual confession by having a family and keeping up with the Joneses when it comes to purchases.  Fine.  All that is interesting.  I even can get behind the notion that fandom can become toxic, even though we --as the audience --tend to be more critical of Owen.

But the thing about fandom that this movie completely misses is the fact that fandom is a thing about love first.  I get the vibe that a lot of this movie is talking about the neurodivergent.  Maddy and Owen have a hard time communicating.  Maddy even hates her other friend because she grows out of the show that they were both obsessed with.  There is a breath of joy to their friendship when Maddy sends Owen tape after tape of inscribed VHSes of The Pink Opaque.  But they never talk.  And if the show they are watching is Buffy the Vampire Slayer, it misses all of the fun of that show.  The reason why Buffy was such a good watch was because it mixed darkness with tremendous amounts of fun.  I mean, even if you watch the opening credits of the show, you get a pretty solid understanding of the tone.  Fans, while crushed by some of the moments on the show (for me, the episode named "The Body"), it's ultimately a story about friendship and the power that women have.  Watching The Pink Opaque, I was just bummed.  This show seemed to match the tone of the movie, low-energy and crap.  

On top of that, The Pink Opaque doesn't look fun.  They go out of their way to make the movie look like trash.  Honestly, I get that you are doing a send up of '90s genre storytelling, but Buffy, for all of its datedness, mostly holds up.  Am I asking Jane Schoenbrun to make an imaginary show with the quality of Buffy?  No, I am asking her to make a show that at least sells the idea of greatness.  Listen, I never got into Twin Peaks.  I watched all of it and hated it.  But I also understood that the show had something special for people.  Instead, we get this show that is just garbage looking.  It even doubles down on that idea when Owen revisits the show as an adult.  It almost feels insulting to people who really invested in something that defined an era in their lives.  Sure, I haven't sat down and watched a Buffy or Angel episode in ages.  But I watch clips from time to time and the nostalgia holds up.  It still looks good.  Not great, but I never thought that it was childish.

But I have to look at what Schoenbrun is doing in terms of making queer cinema.  Again, I'm not Schoenbrun.  I'm not Justice Smith nor am I Brigette Lundy-Paine.  This not my story, so I can only come from this from an outsider's perspective.  But this is a horror movie.  This is a film that is colored by tragedy.  Again, I can't stress enough how depressing every single moment of this movie is.  Even in friendship and arts, this movie just screams that every living moment is a huge bummer.  Okay, Maddy and Owen are trapped in this miserable world.  Maddy finds solace (through her words, not her behavior) in the show The Pink Opaque.  So in attempt to escape this burdensome lifestyle, she discards the Maddy identity and becomes Tara.  (It should be noted that Tara is the name of Amber Benson's gay character in Buffy and Amber Benson makes a cameo in the film as well.) But Maddy isn't happy in this lifestyle either.  In fact, the film drops the notion that this is the third time that Maddy has changed identities.  Part of that comes from the fact that Owen is unwilling to shed his Owen identity to become Isobel.  Sure, Owen is punished for this action by living in what Maddy calls the Midnight Realm, a depressing, boring, cis gendered life.  

BUT SINCE THERE IS NO HAPPINESS, why would Owen join Maddy? There's a message there that is so muddied down by its absolutely lazy tone that none of it seems like the right answer.   I appreciate that this is a story about identity, but it's not selling any identity in a positive light. The movie is so concerned with the vibes of a horror movie without actually being a horror movie that it forgot that horror movies can be fun.  We All Go to the World's Fair kind of works because it's a single person from a single perspective.  It gives the aura of a school shooter because we have a limited perspective.  I Saw the TV Glow is almost damning to Schoenauer because it shows that not only is the director a one-trick pony, but that trick isn't even that great.